When nature becomes a resource

Detail

1. Nature and resource: two different ideas

• Nature is everything living and non-living that humans did not make. It includes air, water, soil, rocks, plants and animals.
• Something in nature becomes a resource only when people use it.
• People use it to stay alive (sustenance) or to make things.

• Example: a standing tree is part of nature. It becomes a resource when it is cut and its wood is made into furniture.

• Resource: anything in our surroundings that can meet our needs. It must pass three tests: it must be technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally acceptable.

• Natural resource: a material or substance found in nature that is valuable to humans.
• Almost every man-made object traces back to nature. A plastic button is made from petroleum, which is a natural resource.

2. The three tests: when does a thing count as a resource?

Test	Meaning in simple words	Example
Technologically accessible	We have the tools and skills to reach it and use it	Oil lying deep under the sea floor may be beyond our present technology, so it is not yet a usable resource
Economically feasible	Taking it out is worth the cost	A thin, deep ore body whose extraction costs more than the ore is worth stays unused
Culturally acceptable	Society accepts its use	Trees in sacred groves are not cut, so the community does not treat them as timber

• If even one test fails, the thing stays "neutral stuff" of nature and does not become a resource.
• The tests change over time. New machines, new prices or new beliefs can turn nature into a resource, or stop something from being one.

3. Sacred groves: the "culturally acceptable" test in practice

• Sacred grove: a patch of forest or a cluster of trees that a local community protects for religious or cultural reasons. The reason may be belief in a forest deity, protection of a spring, or a burial ground of ancestors [2].
• Size and number
• Groves range from less than 1 hectare to several hundred hectares [2].
• India has the highest concentration of sacred groves in the world, estimated at over 100,000 [2].

• Some groves are the only natural forest left outside protected areas, so they shelter rare plants and animals [2].

• Why people do not cut them: there is a belief that anyone who cuts a tree or uses an axe in the grove will be harmed by the presiding deity [2]. So belief, not law, keeps the timber out of use.

• Local names by state (a favourite match-the-pair area) [2]:

State	Local name
Himachal Pradesh	Devban
Uttarakhand	Devan / Deobhumi
Rajasthan	Oran (also deora, malvan, rakhat bani, mandir van)
Maharashtra	Devrai
Karnataka	Devarakadu
Kerala	Kavu
Andhra Pradesh	Pavithravana
Madhya Pradesh	Sarna
West Bengal	Gramthan
Manipur	Umanglai
Meghalaya	Law Kyntang / Law Lyngdoh

• Orans of Rajasthan [2]
• "Oran" comes from the Sanskrit word Aranya, meaning undisturbed forest.
• There are about 25,000 Orans covering about 6,00,000 hectares. Of this, about 5,37,000 hectares lie in the western Thar region, west of the Aravalli hills.
• They work as reserves for grazing, forest produce and rainwater infiltration (water soaking into the ground). They also help people cope with climate change in dry regions.

• Common trees and shrubs include Prosopis cineraria (khejri), Zizyphus (ber) and Salvadora.

• Bishnoi link [2]

• In 1730, at Khejadli village in Jodhpur district, 363 Bishnois gave their lives to protect khejri trees. This is remembered as an early form of the "hug a tree" (Chipko) idea.

• Supreme Court, 18 December 2024 (in the T.N. Godavarman forest case) [2]

• It directed Rajasthan's Forest Department to carry out on-ground and satellite mapping of every sacred grove.
• Groves are to be classified as "forests" whatever their size, based on their cultural and ecological purpose.
• It recommended declaring them community reserves under Section 36-C of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. A community reserve is community or private land that the state government declares protected when the community agrees to protect it. Its land use cannot then be changed without the approval of the community committee and the state.
• It recommended that the MoEFCC make a national policy and a nationwide survey of sacred groves, marking their area and boundaries.

• It suggested recognising them as Community Forest Resource under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

• The lesson: culture can keep a resource out of use, and law can then build on that culture to conserve it.

4. Resources are not "free gifts of nature"

• An old view: resources are free gifts of nature, simply lying there to be taken.
• The NCERT view (Class 10): resources are a function of human activity. They exist only because humans find, value and use them.
• Humans are themselves resources. Without human skill, coal is just black rock.
• Fig. 1.1: the nature–technology–institutions link
• Nature supplies the raw material, such as ore, water or soil.
• Technology supplies the tools to reach and process it, such as a drill, a dam or a refinery.
• Institutions supply the rules and organisation that let people use it together: governments, laws, markets, banks and communities.
• Result: a resource is made only where all three meet. Take one away and the "resource" stops being usable.

5. Zimmermann's functional view: "resources are not, they become"

• Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (1933), gave the functional theory of resources.
• Functional: a thing is a resource because of the function it serves for people, not because of what it is.

• "Resources are not, they become." A substance becomes a resource only when people know how to use it and want to use it.

• Step by step

• First a substance lies unused, and nobody values it.
• Then new knowledge or technology finds a use for it, and demand rises.

• Finally it becomes a resource with economic value.

• Examples

• Uranium was of little use until nuclear fission technology made it a fuel for power and weapons.

• Lithium became important only with lithium-ion batteries for phones and electric vehicles. It is now treated as a critical mineral.

• The reverse can also happen. A resource can stop being one when a substitute arrives or when society rejects it.

• Human resources: people's skills, knowledge and health make all other resources useful. A well-trained, healthy population can turn the same nature into far more wealth. (Link: india-population; human-development.)

6. First classification: by use (Class 8)

Category	What it includes	Examples
Resources essential for life	Things without which no living thing can survive	Air, water, food grown from soil
Resources for materials	Raw stuff used to build and make things	Wood to marble; coal to gold
Resources for energy	Sources of power for heat, light, transport and industry	Coal, water, petroleum, natural gas, sun, wind

• One resource can sit in more than one class.
• Coal is a material (for carbon and chemicals) and also a source of energy.

• Water is needed for life and is also a source of energy through hydropower.

• India's geographical diversity (mountains, plateaus, plains, deserts, coasts) gives it a very wide range of material resources, from Himalayan timber to Rajasthan's marble and the coal of the Chota Nagpur plateau.

7. Why this idea matters for sustainable use

• If resources are made by people, people also decide how fast they are used up.
• Better technology can widen the resource base, for example by reaching deeper oil.
• Good institutions (laws, community rules, planning) can slow down over-use.

• Cultural values, as in sacred groves, can protect nature without any law.

• This thinking runs through the global debate on limits and sustainability in this era: the Club of Rome (1968), the Brundtland Report (1987), Agenda 21 at Rio (1992) and the SDGs (2015).

Prelims Hooks

• The three conditions for something to be a resource are that it is technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally acceptable. A common trap swaps in "politically approved".
• "Resources are not, they become" is from Erich Zimmermann, 1933. It is called the functional theory.
• NCERT Fig. 1.1 shows a resource as the link between nature, technology and institutions. Capital or labour are not the three elements.
• The Class 8 classification by use is for life, for materials and for energy.
• Sacred grove names by state: Oran (Rajasthan), Devrai (Maharashtra), Kavu (Kerala), Devarakadu (Karnataka), Umanglai (Manipur), Law Kyntang (Meghalaya), Sarna (Madhya Pradesh) [2].
• Rajasthan has about 25,000 Orans covering about 6 lakh ha, mostly in the western Thar [2].
• Community reserves are declared under Section 36-C of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 [2].
• The Khejadli sacrifice (1730, Jodhpur district) was by the Bishnoi community to protect khejri trees [2].

Mains Points

• Resources are made by people (GS-III). Calling resources "free gifts of nature" encourages over-use. Seeing them as a product of nature, technology and institutions puts the responsibility for sustainable use on human choices. Examples are lithium's rise with battery technology and uranium's with fission.
• Culture as a conservation tool (GS-I/GS-III). India's more than 100,000 sacred groves show cultural acceptability working as a brake on extraction. They are disappearing under demand for timber, urban growth and farm expansion. The SC judgment of 18 December 2024 responds with mapping, "forest" status, community reserves and a national policy [2].
• Human resources come first. Skills and knowledge decide whether nature becomes wealth. Investment in education and health is the base of resource development. (Link: human-development.)
• Institutions decide whether use is fair. Community rights under the Forest Rights Act and community reserves under the Wild Life (Protection) Act turn traditional care for nature into legal protection [2].